Death of a President

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The movie IS a provocation, but not a glib or ideologically myopic one.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Many of its fiercest detractors may be surprised to find that it's a far more sobering piece of speculative fiction than they might have imagined.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It's more than simply a well-crafted piece of fake history.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Given the controversy, which strongly suggested that the filmmakers had it in for President Bush, the film's biggest shocker may be how kind Range and coscreenwriter Simon Finch are to him.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The excitingly well-made Death of a President imagines the assassination of President Bush as a way of analyzing political violence. And Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, sight unseen, has labeled it despicable.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Is it a worthwhile movie? Yes, for the most part.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

A masterly piece of documentary chicanery that kills George W. Bush without once pandering to his legions of ill-wishers.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Range has a marvelous feel for the clichés and conventions of TV-news documentary, and the tone of mournful elegy he strikes here is both convincing and -- believe me, I'm shocked to be writing this -- moving.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

There's something foul about staging the assassination of a sitting president in order to push a political agenda that could just as easily have been put forward without resorting to such sensationalism.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

The film is cannily made.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The flaw in Death of a President isn't one of morality. It's one of dramatic interest.

Slate Dana Stevens

Politically noncommittal and dull. But that's exactly the problem with this 90-minute piece of cinematic trompe l'oeil.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Turns out to be rather less than the sum of its headlines.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Aside from satisfying some kind of ghoulish curiosity about how such an incident could possibly happen, there's precious little in Death of a President to justify the extremity of its central conceit.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

By the end, there's nothing to admire except Range's technical virtuosity.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

As skillful an artist as Range clearly is, he has gone to an awful lot of trouble to make a painfully obvious point about threats to civil liberties in a post-9/11 world.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

A technically inventive, thoughtful, but otherwise not particularly earth-shattering movie.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Though the blending of archival footage into a faux documentary is occasionally clever, ultimately it's banal and unconvincing.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

D.O.A.P. would be more effective, and more entertaining, if it took a cue from "Dr. Strangelove" and used Sterling Hayden's paranoid, quick-triggered Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper as the model for Cheney to get more outlandish behavior from him.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Death of a President wants to function as a mindless thriller that eventually makes us think -- and only after the film is over question the form that encouraged us to be mindless. These are incompatible agendas, and in the end neither is fully successful.

Premiere Ethan Alter

There's no question that Death of a President fulfills its objective as a conversation starter, but as a movie, it's sketchy at best.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Death of a President is celluloid mediocrity. It's neither interesting nor convincing.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

As convincing as the manipulated footage of the President's death in Chicago in October 2007 is, the movie itself cannot be more unconvincing in its approach.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Disappointingly, Death of a President shrinks from its promise as a piece of genuinely radical or adventurous speculative fiction.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Dramatically inert but a minor techno-miracle, Range's movie is a faux documentary with fake talking heads and seamless digital effects.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Some will find profundity in the film's reversals and revelations, but its provocations are not particularly insightful or original. The Death of a President is, in the end, neither terribly outrageous nor especially heroic; it’s a thought experiment that traffics in received ideas.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Shopworn propaganda.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Is Death of a President plausible? As political prognostication, perhaps. As a TV documentary, no way in hell. What's missing is shapeliness, suspense, narrative cunning, visual flair--in short, art. Are we really to believe that a network of the future would broadcast such a barbiturate?

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Depictions of an aide talking about her hospital vigil and her words of comfort to a distraught Laura Bush are creepy and exploitative -- and borderline disgusting.

New York Post Kyle Smith

The only thing that's shocking about Death of a President is how boring it is.